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Pixel Perfect
At first glance, pixel art may seem like an antiquated medium, a nostalgic nod to the early days of digital culture. However, 'Pixel Perfect' challenges this perception, positing that pixel art serves as a modern-day tapestry of emotion, meaning, and revolution in the age of Web3.
'Pixel Perfect' is an exhibition that redefines pixel art as not merely retro charm but as a potent narrative tool. The works displayed break away from the simplistic confines of the pixel grid to present an intricate symphony of color, form, and meaning. We are placing a spotlight on artists who are molding this pixelated language within Web3.
At a time where high-resolution and complex graphics are often viewed as the hallmarks of digital artistry, 'Pixel Perfect' calls for a momentary pause, encouraging visitors to appreciate the subtle intricacy of pixel-based mediums. In doing so, we reveal how this elemental art form serves as a resilient building block in the newly unfolding digital frontier—a unifying thread weaving together diverse narratives within a decentralized art world.
Artists
- diid
- YUDHO
- MEK.txt
- Zero X
- Postmodern Ouroboros
- Loackme
- Kerim Safa
- Spøgelsesmaskinen
Loackme
Loackme is a French generative artist currently based in Amsterdam.
After completing his PhD in Statistics and working as a researcher for some time, he made the decision to leave academia in 2018 and pursue his passion for digital art and graphic design. Loackme's artistic practice is characterized by his love for monochrome and geometric designs, as well as animated loops.
Among other things, he’s a self-professed 'dither enthusiast', using various dithering algorithms to create the illusion of a wide range of colors (or shades of grey) from a limited palette. The strong aesthetics and constraints associated with these algorithms are a constant source of inspiration for him.
Overwritten
The second law of thermodynamics teaches us that fighting entropy is a futile effort. A closed system left to its own devices will only experience an increase in entropy. This is one of the reasons why storing information is a challenge. The digital revolution might lead us to believe that information is safely and permanently stored in our computers or in the clouds, but keeping all this information from decaying requires constant effort. Overwritten is a visual exploration of this phenomenon. Each piece has a ‘writing mechanism’ whose trace is constantly erased by glitchy pixels copied from the piece itself. This little dance is endless.
MEK.txt
My name is MEK.txt. I'm a visual artist who experiments with pixel art as my main forte, but I don't limit myself to only pixel art. I'm also a typographer/graphic designer by trade and have co-founded a graphic design studio here in Indonesia with my partners for 14 years now.
Westwards
“Walking Westward in the Morning.”
GIF • 2610 x 2840 px16 frames • 261 x 284 Canvas SizeHand-drawn, animated pixel art.
Pale Blue
A pale figure under the bright, blue moon.
GIF • 3000 x 3400 px8 frames • 300 x 340 Canvas SizeHand-drawn, animated pixel art.
Zero X
Zero X is an anonymous crypto artist who focuses on low-resolution artwork and 1-bit colorways. His intention is to highlight the "computer window" in its various forms and offer diverse artistic interpretations of the window in a pixelated format. Through this, he attempts to bring vitality and complexity to an ostensibly inert and stagnant object.
Series 1, Offline - FULLY ON-CHAIN
diid
Artist exploring the bounds of the analog and digital, focused in fully on-chain works of minimal size and dimensions while communicating complex ideas and concepts. Always building for the web3 community and opening gates for artists new and old to create and deploy art on the blockchain.
Flowers in antarctica - FULLY ON-CHAIN
When we reach the end of the uncharted path, the solemn sense of accomplishment will likely be dwindled at the hands of the foolishness of the endeavor to begin. Alas, Mother Nature provides us confirmation that she was here the whole time.
Flowers in Antarctica consists of a fully on-chain dithered film photo from the first successful expedition to the South Pole. At the time, it was a foolish and expensive endeavor, so much so that Amundsen's team didn't even know what they were getting into until they arrived. Yet, they succeeded. This piece is also paired with a physical, robot drawn from the source image. The analog counterpart, alongside the solemn flower, is a reminder that the world we live in is a physical one as well. As it stands, this work is the largest single transaction image ever minted on the Ethereum blockchain.
2880 x 1920, 10 colors, 106kb
Kerim Safa
Kerim Safa (b. 1985, Turkey) is a Netherlands-based artist working with pixels and sounds. Drawing inspiration from early abstract animations and computer games, Safa's work is distinguished by pixel aesthetics, meticulous frame-by-frame animation techniques, and a deliberately limited color palette. His creations often feature cyclical mechanisms, mathematically-inspired patterns, intricate contraptions, and musical elements. Safa's artworks have been showcased in numerous exhibitions and public spaces globally, earning a place in the collections of over a thousand individuals.
Dimenshifter
A mechanized exploration of size sorting and dimensional transformation within an imaginary factory setting.
216x216x5 pixels, 60 frames, 2 colors, GIF, 2024
YUDHO
Yudho is a multidisciplinary artist from Indonesia who is currently focused on drawing pixel art.
𝔅𝔩𝔞𝔠𝔨 𝔏𝔬𝔱𝔳𝔰
048 x 2048 pixels
24 frames
GIF
2024
Spøgelsesmaskinen
Rune Brink Hansen (b. 1979, Odense, Denmark) is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. He started working with digital interfaces during the early internet days. Since then, he has crafted digital visuals for festivals, designed spaces for museums, and exhibited large-scale light installations at various institutions and galleries. In 2021, he adopted the Spøgelsesmaskinen artist name for his 3D and NFT artwork. In the global online art community, he is known simply as "Spogel".
Postmodern Ouroboros
Postmodern Ouroboros is a digital artist specialized in pixel art and game design based in Venezuela. His works are usually a digital maelstrom of cryptic messages and shapes inspired by retro UI design, minimalism, grimdark, and technoir aesthetics. With a representative fixation on traditional narratives in epic contexts such as conflicts and inner debates, Postmodern Ouroboros' works tend to boldly navigate between a wide range of themes, from obsession and the struggles of modern-day life to the continuous decoupling of the traditional concept of god from the modern man. He is currently working as an Art Director and Lead writer on an upcoming independent psychological horror video game.
What makes a man something beyond his own nature? Questions about the foundations that define the noble titles we tend to use to measure success and pride have been following us since the dark ages. From elder priests to chancellors, every person has been bound to their own complex idea of self beyond their name or title. From self-proclaimed gods to modern-day saviors, it's nothing new under the sun.
"Gods and Heroes" as a collection is a statement and a quick response to the question: what makes a God a God and a hero a hero? Nothing would be truly satisfied enough with the empiric answers offered to create a genuine quorum, but something more humble can be achieved, a suggestion, maybe Gods and Heroes as a question can bring a more settled answer by appealing a more mundane but honest usage.Using pixel art as carrier and the characteristic design raised on patterns and figures onboarding questions and secondary ideas, "Gods and Heroes" are an answer as a whole to a philosophical and humane question that surrounds the mistery of concepts and times older than our own perception of time can hold.
"Gods" (2023)
Far from their so-called homonyms of brass and blood, if you're able to thrive and grow in the harsh of the marshes, in the coldest of the valleys and able to keep moving over the seething sun in the cruelest of the prairies, then, without a doubt, you're your own god. Praise to your own miracle.
Canvas Size 240x268px (Native) 5 Colours, 136 frames
"Heroes" (2023)
Far from their so-called brothers of dented copper and rusted iron, if you're able to bring light to the lives of your people, if you're there to give yourself on their pursuits with the same conviction like in the ones that belong to you and if you're always throwing yourself at the fight at their time of greatest need, you're their own hero.Praise to your own sacrifice.
Canvas Size 240x268px (Native) 5 Colours, 80 frames
